Theory of the State and Value Judgements

Abstract

Max Weber’s Logos essay, in which he once more programmatically laid out the basic elements of his doctrine regarding value judgements, ends with a virtuoso glorification of the state. He writes here of the “prestige” of the state and its “power over life, death and liberty”, the role of the state as the largest “economic entrepreneur”, as the most powerful “protection” the citizen can buy, of its exemplary achievements thanks to its modern rational organisation. He considers that the conclusion is almost inevitable “that [the state] must also — and particularly with respect to valuations in the domain of ‘politics’ — be the ultimate ‘value’, and that all social actions must in the last resort be measured in terms of the interests connected with its [continued] existence.”¹ He had already characterised the state in the essay on objectivity as a “convenient covering term for utterly entangled evaluative ideas”² and emphasised the way in which any conception of the state was bound up with values, including his own. Since he here directly relates his conception of values to his view of the state, we should systematically examine their connection in his writing, tracing their genesis and so revealing the value aspect of his theory of the state. But before we turn to this, we need to clarify some features of his doctrine of value.

Of course, one can also talk here about “value” wherever not! Gum is nothing compared to the pliability of this word … “Value,” that is the word of words, our saviour in a thousand dilemmas, the darling of all sonorous speeches.

(Friedrich Gottl, Die Herrschaft des Wortes)

Each sees what is in his own heart.

(Goethe, Faust Part I)